


Birthday Blues

by FleaBee



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-04 13:36:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10992000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleaBee/pseuds/FleaBee
Summary: Every year Dave Lister reminisces about the children he had to give up.





	1. First Birthday

The panicked voice of Rimmer came from down the hallway. "Lister, where are you?" The hologram shouted over and over. From where his voice was coming from, we was running up and down the hallways, yet his footsteps could not be heard. His footsteps could never be heard. When he stopped talking and breathing through his nose, he was impossible to track without sight. Being a hologram, he couldn't listen to the movements Rimmer made; being consisted of light and all.

Lister curled up hoping that the other man wouldn't think to look in his hiding spot. He just wanted to be left alone. Was one day without the Cat and Rimmer to much to ask for? He couldn't deal with whatever smeg Rimmer had for him today.

"Holly," Rimmer called out, his voice was on the other side of the door. "Where is he?"

"Where's who?" Holly asked lazily. Her voice coming from all the speakers in the area. She knew exactly who Rimmer was looking for. Not like there were many options.

"Lister you gimboid," the frustrated hologram shouted. Lister imagined the hologram was stamping his foot as he looked at the screen with his nose flaring.

"Dave wants to be left alone," Holly answered. Lister sighed, it sounded like Holly was keeping her promise.

"I don't care, Holly, I need to be with him." Rimmer whinnied like a child who wasn't getting his way.

"Well, that's not going to help much considering you can't touch him," Holly replied in her monotone voice. "It did take you long enough to realise your feelings for him. No wonder why Dave is hiding from you."

Lister almost gave his location away, snorting at Holly's comment. As if Rimmer would want him in the way she was suggesting. Rimmer screamed out in frustration, not even denying what Holly had just suggested.

"Do you even know what day it is?" Rimmer asked the computer in a tone that suggested she should be aware.

"Thursday," Holly replied confidently.

"No!" Rimmer screamed. "Yes it's Thursday, but that's not what this is about."

Lister listened, did Rimmer really know what today was? He assumed he did but didn't care. He didn't seem to care about anything unless it affected him directly.

"It's also been a year since I changed my gender."

"That's not for another week. Have you lost all sense of time in the last three million years?" Rimmer snapped, taking a deep breath despite not needing to breathe. "Today is Jim and Bexley's first birthday. This time last year, Kryten was slicing Dave open to deliver the twins. This time last year we were discovering that they were ageing too fast and you were trying to work out if sending them to the reverse gender dimension would make a difference or not."

Lister could not believe the emotion in Rimmer's voice. That he actually did remember and he really did care.

"Oh dear, no wonder why Dave is upset."

"So that's why he can't be alone today. Why I can't be alone today."Rimmer said in a whisper which Lister heard anyway despite being on the other side of the door Rimmer was standing near.

Rimmer sounded desperate as he asked.  "Where is he?"

"He's sitting in the stasis booth. It's turned off," Holly said.

Holly had betrayed him, revealing his location. He knew that Rimmer would be looking at the stasis booth.

"Lister, I know you're in there. Open up," Rimmer demanded. Lister didn't have the energy to respond or open the door. "I'm coming in."

 

Rimmer walked through the stasis boot door finding that he did still project here. He hadn't been too sure since the projection system didn't work everywhere in the ship. Lister was curled up, rocking on the floor. He smelled or booze and cigarettes. His clothing was a mess, and he had bags under his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping well at all in the past year. Pretending that everything was fine and dandy when everyone knew it wasn't.

Rimmer sat on the floor next to Lister wishing he could hold him. What Lister need right now was a hug from someone comforting him. Exactly what Rimmer couldn't give and had never received himself even when he had been alive and needed one.

"I miss them too," Rimmer whispered in what he hoped was a soothing tone.  "Not as much as you. You're the one who was pregnant with them. Gave birth, held them in your arms as they cried from how much pain they were in from growing so fast. I really do miss them. I keep wondering how different the past year would've been if we got to raise them. If we would grow up at all. Personally, I feel that we both regressed when we returned from the other universe."

Rimmer continued talking as he reminisced about how different their lives would've been with the twins around the past year. Watching the boys smile, laugh, talk, sit up, crawl, stand up and maybe even walk. Both of them trying to get used to the change in routine. How different some of their adventures would've been with two babies.

"Rimmer, can you write that all down for me," Lister asked. "What life would be like with the twins still here. I want to read it later."

Rimmer grinned, it was the first confirmation he had that Lister was listening to him.

"I can do that," Rimmer promised, and it was a promise he intended to keep.

Lister smiled a sad smile. Standing up and opening the stasis booth door."Let's go look at the boy's room."

 

They both wandered to the room, opening the door for the first time in just under a year. It was still set up for the newborn twins. With the cot, Lister had made when he first discovered he was pregnant. The knitted clothing and blankets also made by Lister. The toys they had raided from the gift shop and some of the crew's rooms.

"These are new," Lister pointed two photos.

"I had Holly print them, and Kryten hang them up for me just before we sealed the room."

A photo hung above each bed. One baby in a green blanket with the word James below it and the other baby in a blue blanket with the name Bexley. Taken before they had started aggressively ageing super fast. Lister had refused to go into the room before they sealed it, at the time being in too much emotional pain. To him, it felt like he was killing his own children if he'd gone back into the room.

There was a collection of photos on the two nightstands. One Lister had taken when they saw the future echoes, a couple of Lister when he was pregnant, and the rest of the three short days they spent with the twins.

"You're allowed to miss them, Dave," Rimmer said, using Lister's first name, so he knew what he was saying was important. "It's natural to miss your children and wonder what could have been. Next week we need to go back to living in the present and not living in the past."

"Why a week and not a day?" Lister turned seeing Rimmer's devastated face for the first time."A week it is." Lister agreed. "Thank's Rimmer, for caring and not letting me wallow in self-pity."

Lister wasn't the only one suffering. He wasn't going through this alone. It had not just affected him, it had affected the people around him. And of the ones around it had affected Rimmer the most. The one who had supported him from the first moment they'd discovered that the pregnancy was even viable in their own dimension. Lister picked up a picture of his newborns and hugged it to his chest. He would never forget his children and neither would Rimmer.


	2. Sixth Birthday

"That was a close one." Kristine Kochanski breathed out in relief as she examined the console, tapping away at all the data, sitting in the seat which had been Rimmer's. They were finally out of GELF rang and the fires onboard had been put out. All in all, it was just an ordinary day.

Lister watched the woman from another dimension. A new addition to the crew who had got trapped in their dimension a few months earlier.

Lister opened his mouth to comment on the close call when Starbug's dashboard clock caught his attention. His feeling of relief from surviving an onslaught quickly disappeared. That could not be today's date, it couldn't have snuck up on him like that. Six years today, not including time spent in stasis he'd given birth to his twin boys. He always knew when their birthday was. How could he not know it was already their birthday?

"David, are you alright? Did you get hurt? It was a rough escape?" Kochanski fussed over him. He usually loved her fussing over him.

"I didn't get hurt," Lister said, trying to smile but instead, tears came to his eyes. He couldn't stop the sob or the tears. He hated himself for losing track of time.

Generally the week of the twin's birth and sending them to live with Deb; Rimmer would be with him. They would reminisce about his pregnancy and the three days they spent with the children. They'd wonder what would be different if the boys had been normal. They'd take guesses at what the boys were doing now. Rimmer would tell him that it was for the best since they were alive and well. Rimmer would even hold him as he cried for his boys after he'd become a hardlight hologram. Rimmer who hated being touched would put aside his personal feelings for that week. Then after the week was done, Rimmer would get him out of his self-pity, and they'd live out the remainder of the year as normal. Or as normal as possible three million years in deep space.

"Dave?" Kochanski asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Can you tell me what's wrong? Did you get hurt?"

Lister brushed her hand off his shoulder. She was not Rimmer. She didn't know what had happened. She didn't even know the twins existed.

"I just need to be alone." Lister pushed her away, exiting the cockpit and ran before she could ask more questions. She was not Rimmer. She could not make everything better like that smeghead Rimmer always had been able to do.

This was Jim and Bexley's sixth birthday and the first year without Rimmer by his side. Rimmer who'd been a pain in his bum before getting trapped in deep space. Who's hologram had been turned on to keep him sane. Who drove him up the wall just by being in the same room. Who'd been there when he was sick, injured, healthy, sad, happy, drunk, pregnant and hormonal who read to him everything he could about pregnancy and child rearing. Who'd been just as heartbroken as he was when they discovered something was wrong with the twins, who was just as devastated when they got home from dropping them off with Arlene and Deb.

Why had he talked Rimmer into being Ace? He'd probably sent his best friend to his death. When had Rimmer changed from being the person who annoyed him most in the world to being his best friend? Lister realised for the first time that he missed Rimmer just as much as he missed his twin boys. Rimmer really was the person who helped keep him sane. How was he meant to stay sane without Rimmer, especially today?

 

Lister locked himself in the room. Jamming the door so Kochanski and Kryten could not get in.

He stared at what would've been Rimmer's side of the room once Kristine joined them since she was in his room now. Trying to imagine the past few months if he'd stayed. Would he get along with Kristine? Picturing a life that would never happen with himself, Rimmer, Jim and Bexley with everything that occurred in the last year.

Lister opened the journal that Rimmer kept, the one that Kryten didn't know about. The one that they wrote together. They sometimes read it during the year when they were feeling down. He hasn't looked at it since last year. It didn't feel right without Rimmer around. Opening up to where they'd left off, was extra entries. Entries that he'd never seen before. It was alternate versions of how events may have played out up until the day that Rimmer left to become Ace.

> _We all watched as Wildfire left on her own to find a more suitable Ace. Arnold could not leave, Dave would not be able to raise to boisterous five and a half-year-olds on his own. The boys needed both their parents. They need their father and their Uncle Arnie._

Lister cried freely as he read every entry. Rimmer had filled out the pages for him up until the point he left.

> _Lister or should I say, Dave. You need to fill out the months since I left. I won't be there with you this year or the next. I'm not sure how long I will be gone for. You need to fill in these pages in for me to read when I get back._
> 
> _I will be back, you'd go insane without me. I didn't want to leave but sometimes to keep the person you love the most, sane you need to take a step back and give them space. This year will be hard for you. It's the first time you've been alone. Know that it will be hard for me too, it will also be my first year alone, well if you don't count Rimmerworld, which I don't. I went into a standby sort of mode and don't remember much of those years._
> 
> _Missing you,_
> 
> _Arnold J. Rimmer_

Lister smiled and started filling in alternate events of the year since Rimmer left, with Rimmer, Jim and Bexley meeting Kristine. If the boys had been around Rimmer would be jealous of her potentially stealing his place in the boy's life, even if it was evident she wasn't. Rimmer would be jealous of the baby currently growing in the artificial uterus in the medibay, trying not to be jealous of the fact he'd never have biological children. Lister felt better after he finished filling out the journals.

 

The hallways were dark and quiet at he wandered through the ship. Everyone else was asleep except whoever was on duty in the drive room. He got a snack, and they went to the medibay, standing in front of the contraption that held his newest son.

Another son that he would never get to raise. He already knew what some of next year's entries would be. Jim and Bexley becoming big brothers to Dave junior. Dave would not have to go to the past and become him. Rimmer would have a field day with the knowledge that Lister was his own father and Kochanski, his mother. That the infant he was looking at was his past self.

"Dave, is everything alright?"

Lister looked up and saw that Kristine Kochanski had once again invaded his personal space.

He didn't look up from the growing baby. Maybe if he told her about his other children, perhaps she would understand. She wasn't Rimmer, but he needed someone to talk to now that he'd finished updating the journal. "No, it's not alright. Today is Jim and Bexley's birthday."

"The Zero-G football player? His birthday isn't today?" Kristine chuckled, assuming that he'd got the date of his favourite football player wrong. Didn't she hear the and?

"No, my sons, they would be six today. I miss them, and I'm missing Rimmer more than usual. Rimmer, he's usually with me on this day. He's not his normal smegheaded self. Having to give Jim and Bexley up affected him just as much as me despite not being his kids. I miss them all, my boys and Rimmer. I'm going to have to give up Dave junior as well. It just breaks my heart knowing that I can't keep any of my family. I always ended up alone. First my real parents, then my mum then my dad, gran and anyone I ever considered family. I guess I'm destined to be alone."

Kochanski put her arms around him, leaning her head onto his shoulder, looking at the still developing baby. "I had no idea you'd given up children before. If you had known, I don't think I could've gone through with this. Can you tell me about your sons?"

"It all started when Holly tried to take us back to Earth, but instead we ended up in a parallel universe ..." Lister commencing at the beginning of the story.


	3. Eighteenth Birthday

Ever since Lister had discovered he was his own father he started making Father's Day card for himself. It was something he kept secret from Rimmer because he knew that the hologram would tease him. He didn't keep making cards for the child version of himself and Jim and Bexley a secret from Rimmer and had even managed to get the hologram to join him making his own cards for the three children.

"Those the cards for the boys?" Rimmer asked seeing Lister working on the art project. It was never planned when they would make the cards. Some years in was months in advance and others it was just before the twins birthday or on their birthday.

"Yes," Lister grinned. "Eighteen today, it's a big birthday. Have to make their cards special."

"I see you already made Dave juniors card." Rimmer picked up the completed card a small smile gracing his lips as he examined the card.

"He'll be twelve later in the year. Then he'll become a man. I'm not sure if I should be disappointed as his father or happy because that was one of the best days of my life." Lister grinned.

"I wouldn't call that becoming a man. I still wouldn't call you a man. You're one of the most childish people I know. Twelve is far too young to lose your virginity. You should have waited until you were nineteen like I did. I'm very tempted to time travel to the past and stop that from happening. Maybe even raising you after your Gran dies."

"Gran died when I was thirteen, you raising me would change the timeline too much and would likely end in erasing the twins and even myself. Rimmer, I know you lost your virginity to McGruder when you were in your thirties so stop lying to yourself." Lister teased knowing that McGruder was still a sore point for the hologram even years later.

Rimmer huffed, taking a seat and starting on his own card for the boys.

"Think the boys have lost their virginity yet? They were physically eighteen when we saw them last. They'd be almost physically forty now if they aged correctly after we dropped them off. I wonder if I'm a grandfather yet. I'd like to be a grandfather."

"Technically you would be Jim and Bexley's grandfather through your youngest Dave junior." Rimmer teased. "Who is there to have children with? The only females they know are their mother and Aunt Arlene or father and Uncle Arlene? I never got my head around how that dimension works."

"Maybe someone from the nano crew?" Lister suggested. They didn't know if the other Red Dwarf had ended up remaining like there's just with the children around or had split into an entirely different timeline.

 

The years had become easier after Rimmer had returned from his adventures as Ace. Jim and Bexley's seventh birthday had been just as hard as the twin's sixth. Being stuck with nano resurrected Rimmer in the tank who had no clue why he'd been upset. Lister had to get Bob to smuggle in paper for him to write down that year's events that had to be written in secret and hidden until he went on parole then rewrote them at a later date when he was finally out of the tank.

Kochanski hadn't realised the date until days afterwards, so she hadn't been any comfort and Lister had suffered alone. Hurting nano Rimmer emotionally because he wasn't his Rimmer and since Lister was hurting everyone else needed to hurt as well.

It was back to the old days when they had the whole ship to themselves. The living nano resurrected Rimmer was now gone, as was the rest of the resurrected crew and Kochanski from the other dimension. Rimmer insisted the Kryten has pushed her out the airlock since he was the one who told them about her death. Kryten never did like Kochanski.

Kochanski didn't remain alive in the journal that he and Rimmer still wrote together each year. Rimmer insisted that her being gone was the first true death that the boys had experienced, so as much as it pained Lister, she was killed off in their fantasy life.

 

"So what are our boys doing for their eighteenth?" Lister asked after they finished out writing the alternative events for that year.

"Well they are your sons, they'll get into the liquor and get blind drunk," Rimmer started the story, writing down all the mischief the possibly could've got up to.

"And Uncle Arnie will make their hangover the worst experience of their lives, so they think twice before drinking again." Lister continued. Rimmer nodding that would be exactly what he'd do.

"We both know that only works for a short while since they are both your sons, so they raid the medibay for a hangover cure and get drunk again."

"They then break into the holographic simulation room and program you so that you are drunk as well. Where they learn that the true reason you don't drink around them is you always end up in a dress and telling the most awful truths about your family that no one wanted to know." Lister grinned.

"I don't want to include that," Rimmer said in a heightened pitch. Putting the pen down, crossing his arms, glaring at Lister for even making the suggestion, trying to make Lister burn on the spot for making the suggestion.

Lister was not at all put off, they had this argument almost every year. "You're the one who wanted to keep this as realistic as possible. This is something that could possibly happen." Lister argued his point. "It's not fair if you can put in embarrassing things about me but not about yourself.

With a sigh, Rimmer picked the pen up, writing out the embarrassing passage with more detail then Lister intended. He stopped writing, chewing the pen nervously before putting it down and making a request. "Even though the boys aren't here I think we should have a party for their birthday."

"Brutal, let's get drunk." Lister grinned at the hologram. He never even thought of having a party for his children.

 

Kryten quickly had a room setup for a party. Lister had done a collage from the three short days they'd spent with the twins, and before they knew it, they had a party in full swing by that evening.

"You need to drink more Rimmer, have fun, this is a birthday party." Lister was shoving alcohol into his face. While Rimmer had a couple of drinks it was less than everyone else.

In the background Cat was yowling and dancing having the most fun. Kryten was chatting to one of the scutters about cleaning, also enjoying himself and counting down till the party was over so he could clean even more. The mechanoid would get excited every time a drink was spilt, or something was knocked over since it gave him more to clean.

"Not yet," Rimmer pushed the drink away. "You know I'm a light drunk, I'm already tipsy. I have something to show you before I get too drunk. I'll regret it forever if I don't show you today."

Lister had to help Rimmer to his feet and followed his down a few corridors away from the thumping music. One he would've assumed Rimmer was trying to take him away from the fun, but after years of knowing him, he was aware that he had something important to talk about away from noise. Lister stopped in the doorway of the room Rimmer lead him to. The room was supposed to be Jim and Bexley's bedroom in their old officers quarters. They'd used this room for a short while when Lister was pregnant and could no longer get out of the top bunk, and they discovered that Rimmer couldn't get into the top bunk due to a glitch with the holographic system.

They'd moved quarters, away from this side of the ship when Rimmer returned from being Ace. They all needed a fresh start, especially with Kochanski still with then at the time. It felt too personal having her invade their old rooms and nitpicking everything, and they didn't want her going into the twins room.

On the wall between the two beds was a portrait. A new portrait. A painted portrait. Jim and Bexley standing together how they looked all those years ago. Rimmer and Lister standing either side of them with a hand on each boy's shoulder with how they looked now. In between the twins was Lister's younger self how he looked when he was eleven. Kryten was next to Lister and Cat next to Rimmer.

The painting was in a beautiful hand carved frame with a golden plaque which read 'Jim and Bexley Lister, Happy Eighteenth Birthday, Love Dad and Uncle Arnie.

"It's beautiful Rimmer, you actually painted this?" Lister asked, looking at the painting from every angle.

Rimmer was red with embarrassment. "Ah yes, I did this. Do you like it?"

"I love it. I didn't know you could paint. This is amazing, thank you so much" Lister said in disbelief.

"When I was Ace, I met a Rimmer who remained on Io. Father had died when he was a baby and without father's expectations to get into the Space Corp mother let him do whatever he wanted. He was very creative. He wrote and illustrated books. Did very well for himself, he taught me how to draw properly, and I've been practising ever since."

"You don't talk much about your time as Ace," Lister said. They both sat on a bed each. Lister on Jim's bed and Rimmer on Bexley's.

"I wasn't very good at being Ace, I was to Arnold Rimmer to let go and become and Ace that Wildfire was trying to mould me into. I just couldn't let go of the past."

"I'm glad you came back, those years without you were the hardest, especially on this day," Lister admitted. "Tell me what it was like."

Rimmer nodded and started talking with a story about the twins. "I saw dimensions where we got to raise the twins. Dimensions we had girls instead, occasionally one girl and one boy and even ones with only one child. Many different dimensions.

"Some nothing was wrong, others we worked out how to fix them, others it was Deb who ended up pregnant, and we ended up with the twins at three days old and physically eighteen. Dimensions where I gave birth instead. Dimensions where one of us was male and the other female. Dimensions where one of us were born the opposite gender and transitioned, so it appeared we were the same gender.

"A lot of dimensions where we both survived. One we both died and still ended up getting the twins. Then there were all the dimensions with Kristine Kochanski as the twins mother. So many dimensions with us together. It scared me to admit that Rimmer's who were so much like me ended up with you. The ones more like Ace ended up alone."

Instead of partying like the original plan the two men talked about the dimensions Rimmer had visited. Lister was happy to hear about the twins even if they weren't exactly his twins.

Lister looked at the painting hoping that one day he would get to see his sons again and tell his boys how much he loved them and always would love them. Show them the room they were supposed to have and the portrait their uncle had painted and the book they'd written together or what ifs. The handmade birthday cards and the years worth of presents for every year Lister and Rimmer had missed the children.

Lister moved to the bed Rimmer was sitting on. This was the first year he hadn't started crying that Rimmer hadn't held him not including the years when Rimmer was Ace. Lister wrapped his arms around Rimmer, and the other man held him close awkwardly activating his holobook to show Lister photos of his time as Ace in the dimensions with their twins. He'd seen this book the first time Rimmer had come back, on the twins birthday and Rimmer had shown it to him every year since.


End file.
